Diane von Furstenberg Diane ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 10 October 2011 52 Comments

Diane von Furstenberg Diane

Count me as a Diane von Furstenberg fan from way back. I read her beauty book/memoir when I was in college and felt we must be sisters. Maybe I didn’t marry a prince or launch a fashion empire, but I sure understood her struggles with curly, frizzy hair. When she re-launched her clothing business, I snapped up silk jersey dresses when I could, and now I have seven of them, plus two skirts and a blouse. The flattering cuts, the easy fit, the exuberant prints — I loved it all. Naturally, I dogged perfume counters when Diane Von Furstenberg Diane came out. Verdict? Sadly, not for me.

Diane von Furstenberg describes Diane as a “woody floral” fragrance and says it is “powerful and seductive, without being aggressive.” Perfumer Aurélien Guichard developed Diane, and notes include frangipani, violet, patchouli, myrrh, and musk. That list of notes is seductive, seemingly paving the way for a fragrance with an oriental twist: alluring, earthy, and feminine. Not so on skin. In a nutshell, Diane smells to me like a rose chypre someone tried to wash off with the lily of the valley soap normally kept for show in the guest bathroom…

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Damage Control ~ book review and author interview

Posted by Angela on 6 October 2011 69 Comments

Damage Control, book cover Author Denise Hamilton

When I cracked open the novel Damage Control, I knew I’d have some good reading ahead. The dedication began, “This one’s for the perfumistas.” Add that the book’s author, Denise Hamilton (shown above right), is the Los Angeles Times’ fragrance columnist as well as a bestselling crime writer, and I was ready to call in sick and spend the day on the couch, book in hand.

Damage Control is about Maggie Silver, a budding perfumista and PR flack. She works for the Blair Company, a public relations firm that handles the big jobs. If a company wants word spread about its new potato chips, it can go elsewhere. The Blair Company steps in, for example, when a married governor knocks up his housekeeper then lives a double life with the resulting love child, or when a similarly married governor professes to have found his soul mate in South America.

In Damage Control, a senator’s aide is found murdered in circumstances that don’t reflect well on the senator. Maggie Silver is assigned to his case. The complication is that Maggie was good friends with the senator’s daughter, Annabelle, until Annabelle was sexually assaulted when they were teens. Maggie’s relationship with Annabelle was borderline obsessive — Annabelle had the cultured, coddled life Maggie desired (not to mention the mother with the bureau stocked with Guerlain Vol de Nuit). Covering this case means Maggie must deal with past as well as current puzzles…

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L’Artisan Parfumeur Mon Numero 10 ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 26 September 2011 56 Comments

L'Artisan Parfumeur Mon Numero 10

Two and a half years ago, perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour created ten fragrances. “Sure,” you might say, “And he’s created another couple of dozen since then. Big deal.” The thing is, he only made one bottle of each of these fragrances. L’Artisan Parfumeur put them on the market for $20,000 each. Now L’Artisan is producing eight of those fragrances for the masses for the relative bargain of $200 for 100 ml. Of them, Mon Numéro 10 piqued my interest right away.

L’Artisan Parfumeur’s PR machine says of Mon Numéro 10, “This last act will be explosive. After our travels, secret tributes and other sensual pleasures, this perfume is an explosion of warm, enveloping notes. Quite simply addictive. A heady, memorable ode to a highly sought-after note of oriental perfumes. Mon Numéro 10, with its eccentric, piercing mood, is like an evening gown that turns heads all on its own.”

Well. Does anyone else get an image of trains and bombs and evening dresses walking around without anyone in them? Let me simplify the description of Mon Numéro 10: it’s a spicy leather oriental. My thumbnail review? Leather cola…

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Perfume and Texture

Posted by Angela on 19 September 2011 78 Comments

felted flower

Lately, more and more I’ve noticed the texture of fragrance. Not just how perfume smells, or the colors or moods it evokes, but the sense of thickness, slipperiness, or warmth it evokes. How can liquid smell furry or smooth, cool or scratchy?

Sure, some fragrances smell like particular materials, so it’s natural they’d remind you of that material’s texture. For instance, an oily leather fragrance might bring to mind the rough texture of a motorcycle boot including its rubber tread. Other perfumes, though, don’t smell like any one particular thing, yet they have definite texture. They can be expansive or tight, fluffy or slick, pebbled or icy smooth.

As I unpacked my fall clothes this weekend and laid the wool skirts, cashmere sweaters, velvet jackets, and mohair cardigans on the bed, I thought of perfume and texture again. Here are some of my matches with cool weather textures. I’d love to know about yours.

Wool. Wool can be fluffy like mohair, thick like a sweater, or tightly woven like gabardine…

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Dana Classic Fragrances ~ Love’s Fresh Lemon, Love’s Rainforest, and Love’s Soft Jasmin

Posted by Angela on 12 September 2011 86 Comments

lemon!

Dana Classic Fragrances seems to be in the business of buying up near-dead classic fragrances and reviving them. Yes, they remake them on the cheap, but they also sell them on the cheap, which is more than you can say for Christian Dior. While we might lament the flattening English Leather and Chantilly have suffered on the Dana diet, no one can complain about Love’s Baby Soft and its sisters, Love’s Fresh Lemon, Love’s Rainforest, and Love’s Soft Jasmin body mists. These fragrances were always meant to be splash-and-dash perfumes for those who are barely fragrance literate. If you keep that in mind, you just might appreciate them as much as I do.

First, let’s consider the Love’s bottle. The geniuses at Dana Classic Fragrances (either that, or the cheapos who couldn’t bear shelling out for new packaging) luckily saw fit to keep the old Love’s bottles with their tall, dome-shaped lids and goofy 1970s lettering. Love’s Fresh Lemon and Soft Jasmin feature painted hearts floating up the frosted bottles like balloons at the junior high school prom. The Love’s Rainforest bottle is clear, but is festooned with green vines, which also etch its plastic cap. The packaging is the apogee of retro chic. All we need now is the rebirth of Tickle deodorant — anyone remember that? — and we’ll have come full circle…

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Now Smell This

a blog about perfume

Diane von Furstenberg Diane ~ fragrance review

Damage Control ~ book review and author interview

L’Artisan Parfumeur Mon Numero 10 ~ fragrance review

Perfume and Texture

Dana Classic Fragrances ~ Love’s Fresh Lemon, Love’s Rainforest, and Love’s Soft Jasmin